Chinese Martial Arts Cinema and House of Flying Daggers - Essay Example

Chinese Martial Arts Cinema and House of Flying Daggers The media’s role in bringing about social change iscritical as both history and daily occurrences tend to prove. Using movies and other forms of art, a number of vices have been fought in the society courtesy of the media. Besides, the media has also highlighted some of the issues different people endure in the pursuit of their ambitions and desires. Real life situations are depicted in the movies in a bid to highlight the challenges individuals encounter when making various life-related decisions. One such a movie is a Chinese one titled, House of Flying Daggers certain hard decisions pertaining to life experiences have to be made. This paper will present a review of this movie besides using it to understand the Chinese martial arts industry. The House of Flying Daggers is a Chinese film with a Wuxia storyline where a couple of themes are present. Wuxia implies that the movie centered on a martial hero in this case being Mei who sacrifices her life in a bid to save Jin. In this case, Mei is the hero as she is portrayed as one who cares and helps people. Leo infiltrated the local police force, but was an undercover agent for the group which had a tendency for assisting the poor by stealing from the rich (Thomas n.p.). Produced in 2004, the movie talks about a group with a similar name as the title of the movie, which has broken ranks with the Tang Dynasty. Its leaders are unknown and two police officers, Leo and Jin have been tasked with killing this mysterious leader. The two conspire to incarcerate Mei, a blind but beautiful girl thought to be a daughter of the group’s leader. While the movie has a storyline where the two police officers, Leo and Jin are expected to hunt down the outlawed group’s leaders into, the plot seems to change. Instead of this task becoming the major plot, there is a love triangle involving Jin, Leo and the beautiful Mei. The situation culminates in Mei sacrificing her life in an attempt to save Jin from the flying daggers of Leo. Apparently, jealousy has seized Leo to an extent of eliminating both Jin and Mei. In a manner that could be described as spectacular, the movie is able encompass the some of the implications including political, social and philosophical. For instance, hierarchy is evidenced where the two officers receives orders to eliminate the group. Sadly, the social values seem compromised since the government is corrupt and protects only the rich. Nonetheless, the movie portrays an important role the society could play in changing social vices. It is clear from the movie that revolution starts from the ordinary people the governments tend to ignore especially when their grievances are ignored. The people are tired of the government’s corrupt activities and resort to vigilante-like initiatives to save the poor. In terms of philosophical implications, the movie highlights interesting intriguing scenes faced daily. For instance, nation versus love are tested where both officers focus on Mei as opposed to completing the assignment given to them. In addition, brotherhood and love are tested where the long-term friendship between Leo and Jin does not stop them from fighting for Mei. In addition, the movie seems to demonstrate that individual desires do not always conform to the social order. In fact, the movie shows they are inimical to one’s quest for personal fulfillment. Leo ignores every social order in pursuit of Mei, and in the process contributes to her death. Similarly, those in the leadership overlooks the destructive habit of corruption and instead seeks to achieve own goals. However, the movie seems to state that evil could only be defeated by embracing self-sacrifice. Leo’s personal ambitions are ended when Mei dies thus confirming these assertions. As noted earlier, movies can be used in the change of areas that tend to oppress others in the society. In this movie, the House of Flying Daggers members steal from the rich with a sole aim of helping the less advantaged. While the methods used in meeting this noble goal are not ethical, the primary theme is that a category of people was disinterested while another suffered in abject poverty. Additionally, the local law enforcement is bent in arresting and even killing the leaders of this group with little regard of the motives of its actions. In the film, the order given to the two police officers is to kill the group’s leader. Culture has not been omitted in this movie especially with regard to the Chinese martial arts. In the first scene of fighting in the movie where Leo and his men attack Jin and Mei, the two factions fight employing the Chinese martial arts styles. Additionally, when confronted by the soldiers, Mei and Jin fight using similar tactics, though the soldiers almost overpower them. Martial arts sport in china is mainly traced back in 2698 BC when one of the emperors wrote deeply about the topic. According to Li (p.643) and Allen (p.251) Gongsun was an emperor who had tremendous knowledge on many topics including astrology and medicines besides martial arts. The emperor wrote a lot about this topic prior to becoming a Chinese leader in the stated period. Away from the scenes, the movie has some limitations and weaknesses including a thin and pale plot, weak and tedious lines as well as sex scene. However, its positive impact included putting the Chinese movie industry on the world map as it was promoted for the 2005 Oscar Awards, besides promoting the Chinese language. In comparison to the likes of The Hidden Dragon and Crouching Tiger, this movie varies in some ways including use of popular acts in the two movies. It is similar in the sense that it has a heroine story since Mei plays the heroine in the movie. In addition to the colors used as well as the employment of the traditional Kung Fu styles in the fighting scenes, the movie directors opted for the garments popular with the Chinese culture. Unlike the West where normal clothes are used, this film resorted to the use of garments, which are conversant with the local people. While this might seem as a non-issue, it has its roots as well especially in the martial arts world. According to Zhu and Geng (p. 080204) the Chinese people have always remained committed to their culture be it in form of dressing, acting or dancing. The dressing of martial arts fights is unique in china, and the directors in this movie recognized this fact. As indicated, this movie starts as one that revolves around liberating the poor in the fictitious Fengtian County it changes its plot to the strife between Jin and Leo. Instead of proceeding with the plot where the local authorities are eager to arrest the group’s leaders, the movie shows the hostility between Leo and Jin because of Mei. Apparently, Mei was previously in love with Leo but this love has since subsided. Lately, Mei’s love directed to Jin, and this becomes the cause of this animosity for the remaining part of the film. Leo’s bitterness culminates in a plan to rape Mei, but before this is achieved, the latter is rescued. However, the rescue comes with a new demand: Mei is ordered to kill Jin, but not before having Leo’s dagger embedded on her back. The embedding is meant to show that Mei belongs to Leo no matter her preferences. It is then that Mei goes out supposedly to kill Jin, but this task is not even considered by the former. Instead of obeying the instructions, Mei flees with Jin with Leo pursuing them in a bid to kill Jin. At first, Mei cannot bring herself into deciding whether to go with Jin or remain working in the House. Due to this indecision, Jin leaves Mei but she later comes after him and both intend to escape. Unfortunately, along the way Leo who is burning with anger directed mainly at Mei ambushes them both. Apparently, Mei’s decision to flee with Jin instead of killing him as instructed infuriates Leo who intends to kill both Jin and Mei. With unimaginable anger, Leo throws two daggers at Mei, which end up in her chest. Unknown to her, she removes only one dagger before realizing her attacker had thrown two of them. For some time, the vicious fight goes on between Leo and Jin who evidently bent on killing Jin first. On the other hand, Mei threatens to remove the remaining dagger from her chest in order to occasion bleeding which would result in her death. Incredibly, Leo pretends to throw a dagger and Mei removes the dagger at the chest resulting in the gushing of blood. Consequently, she dies and Jin is seen holding her motionless body evidently shocked and deeply disappointed at the turn of events. It is in this scene that self-sacrifice is underlined by Mei’s decision to pull out the dagger in her chest. Also, it shows the end of brotherhood between the two antagonists, Leo and Jin, but the soldiers are seen closing in on the group’s place. The use of daggers in the martial arts was a common practice in a number of countries including china, India as well as other European countries (Cynarski and Obodyński n.p.). Therefore, by using the daggers in this fight the directors may have sought to show the advancement of the sport in China. Decisions related to personal life in the film show that one could often make difficult choices in a bid to preserve another life. In the film, Mei’s threat was real as evidenced by her final decision to pull out the dagger in a bid to protect Jin. Instead of pleading with Leo to preserve Jin’s life or compromising, Mei chose to die rather than enter in an imposed relationship. Overall, the film has incorporated the much needed cultural aspects in the movie including dressing, fighting styles and the colors. The film seems to primarily focus on the Chinese culture in these and other areas. The constant display of martial arts in the film coupled with the various styles gives the film a sense of Chinese originality. Because of incorporation of the said factors, the film was a success in terms of gross income. Domestically, the film’s gross sale was over $11millions with foreign sales reaching over $81millions. In total, the sales hit the $92 million mark with the film reaching almost every continent (Thomas n.p.). Therefore, one could conclude that one of the major reasons the film was a success was the depiction of the Chinese in an almost original way. Work cited Allen, Barry. Daoism and Chinese Martial Arts. Dao 13.2 (2014): 251-255 Cynarski, Wojciech, and Kazimierz Obodyński. Corporeality in Martial Arts Anthropology. Human Movement 12.3 (2011): n. pag. Li, Siu Leung. Chinese Martial Arts Literature as a Theory Of Stateless Subjects For Taiwan, Hong Kong, China. Inter-Asia Cultural Studies 15.4 (2014): 643-645 Thomas, Kevin. House Of Flying Daggers - Movie Review . New York Times. N.p., 2004. Web. 26 May 2015. Zhu, Jun-Yi, and Xian-Guo Geng. The -Dressing Method For The Sasa—Satsuma Equation With Self-Consistent Sources. Chinese Physics Letters 30.8 (2013): 080204. Read More